One of the major cost items in the Index Plus+ system is the memory needed to store the information of the shows, which includes channel, date, time, length and title of a show. This practically requires as much memory as is needed for implementation of an electronic program guide (EPG). Also, the number of days in advance of the program telecast that recordings can be scheduled is limited by memory and data bandwidth.
The invention greatly reduces the memory requirement and hence the cost of implementation. It is primarily intended to be implemented without a locally stored EPG data base.